Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread

I imagine many people's weekends were spent like mine - with a bowl of flour, instant yeast and water fermenting in a warm corner of the kitchen as they went about their business, courtesy of Jim Lahey and that kitchen imp, Mark Bittman.

Yes, you all know how I feel about the Minimalist. I usually downright ignore his column when Wednesdays roll around. But this time, I simply could not. I've spent too many Saturdays lingering around Sullivan Street Bakery, gnawing on a slice of the best pizza bianca to be found in New York or walking back home with a crinkly bag of filone to ignore Jim Lahey's spectacular recipe for bread that is the easiest I've ever tried, with among the best results.

Yes! A fantastic recipe! Something to rave about! Finally. What a relief. If you all aren't running home to buy instant yeast (not that stuff that comes in little packets, that's not instant) and throw together your loaf of supremely gratifying, holey, tasty bread, well, then I can't help you either. Do it! You'll be so happy you did. And then you can laminate this recipe and add it to the hall of fame.

It's so easy - you mix together some instant yeast, flour (I used a mix of bread flour and AP flour, half and half) salt and some water to form a "shaggy" dough. You cover this tightly and let it sit undisturbed for 12 to 18 hours. Then you sort of manhandle the dough around for a bit, let it rise a little longer while you preheat an oven and a cast-iron pot (I used a round one, but next time might try the smaller oval pot), and then dump your wobbly dough into the hot pot and let it bake in the oven (first covered, then uncovered) until you have a golden, hollow-when-thumped, crackling loaf of bread (it crackles! As it cools!).

You have to let it cool before slicing, but when you do, beware. A taste of those slices of bread - plain, spread with honey, whatever - will make the people around you become singularly fixated and before you know it the entire loaf will be gone. Gone! It's okay. You can make another loaf and barely even dirty your hands. Go! Bake! NOW!

No-Knead Bread
Yields one 1 1/2 pound loaf

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Comments

[Red Icculus]

This recipe is awesome. I did a pictorial on the recipe here: http://red-icculus.com/?p=21

[Jasmine31]

Luisa,

Thanks so much for sharing this recipe. My family enjoyed the bread very much. My dh asked if I could make this every day! lol I posted some pics on my blog too.

[beth hudson]

i dont know what to my bread as the crust was very hard and it didnt rise as high any reasons??

[Banana bread recipe]

Hey nice one, it looks kind of like that Italian style flat bread...I'm not sure how exactly it's called.

[beth hudson]

yummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy the best bread me my family and my bullmastiff and lab OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!! thank kew

[beth hudson]

yummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy the best bread me my family and my bullmastiff and lab OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!! thank kew

[Maria]

I found this recipe in "Mother Earth News" magazine (in which it was attributed to The New York Times), and since I've just started venturing into bread making, though I'd give it a try - with whole wheat flour. It turned out wonderful, not as dense as I worried it might be. For fun, I'm now making it with white flour, to see how that goes. I make it before I go to bed and it's ready to eat at dinner time, with minimal work.

[Peggy J Hansen]

I have been making bread for 45 yrs. and this
bread is amazing. Thanks for sharing it with
us. We love the flavor and texture. It's fun
to play with different herbs and flavors.
Thanks again for sharing.

[Tanya Luz]

I just made two loaves of this, and I think it was the best bread I've ever had in my life. Here's the recipe I used (based on one I found in a Williams-Sonoma advert)

1/4 tsp. yeast (I used bread machine yeast found at the local store)
2 tsp. kosher salt
3 cups all purpose flour
rind of one lemon
small handful of rosemary, chopped coarsely
1 5/8ths cup water (120-130 degrees, as per the instructions on the yeast for adding to a dry mixture)
A couple grinds of good black pepper

I put the lemon, rosemary and dry goods together and ran a fork through it all to lightly mix it together. Then I added the water and mixed it with a wooden spoon until it all came together nicely. It looks like pancake dough. After this, I put it in a bowl and let it sit, covered with saran wrap, for a day (20 hours, but I don't think this matters as much).

When it came time to get going on it, the basic instructions are these: turn your sticky, bubbly mass onto a floured cookie sheet and lightly fold it into a ball. You can flour your hands, or simply wet them to prevent them from getting gooey. Let it sit for about 15 minutes while you find your clean dish cloth. I used cornmeal on my linen cloth, which seemed to add a nice rustic element to the finished loaf. Then, after shaping it loosely again on the cloth, I covered it and let it sit for another few hours while I chased my toddler around.

After pre-heating my oven to 475 degrees with the pot inside (a creuset oval one) I flopped my bread into it in about as ungraceful a manner as you can imagine. Before throwing the lid back on, I gave it another generous sprinkle with sea salt, and put some fresh rosemary sprigs on top for good measure. (I adjusted the heat down to 450 after the loaf was in the oven)

Out it came, 45 minutes later (30 for baking, 15 for browning) a perfect replica of an artisan bread that I might have happily forked over $7 for at a farmers market. When I pulled it out, I drizzled some olive oil over the top, and let it sit for 10 minutes on the counter to cool in the pot. After that, I just turned it out onto a wire rack to finish cooling and it's just perfect. My only regret is there isn't a bigger audience to 'ooh' and 'ahhh' over it!

I think I'll try the next batch with olives, sundried tomatoes and basil, or some variation of. I wonder if you can make a cinnamon/raisin loaf too out of this? I can't imagine why not. What a great way to make delicious bread!

[Bonnie Traher]

Do you have a newsletter I can sign up for?

[cate]

I don't have any of the baking dishes suggested in the recipe. Do you think an enamel roasting pan or a Henckels stock pot (both with lids) would get too hot? Thanks heaps.

[cate]

ahh...right...your recipe did suggest an enamel pan whereas the original did not. it worked perfectly. cheers!

[Foodguy]

I don't normally bake bread, but you've made it sound so easy I'm going to give this recipe a shot. Thanks for sharing!

[Lance]

Well…………………..it is now 25 August 2008. I discovered this recipe only a few days ago. I was fascinated enough to go out and buy a 5 quart Dutch Oven. I would have gotten a 6 quart one, but the 6 quart model had a plastic handle that I was afraid would be damaged by high heat. Anyway, I read all of the comments posted here and determined to plunge ahead.

Instead of 1 ½ cups of water, I used 1 5/8 cups with three cups of flour. I added Red Star packet yeast and 1 ½ teaspoon of salt. (Well………..maybe that wasn’t exactly by the book. But my research suggested that the Red Star yeast was essentially the same as the so-called “instant yeast.” Obviously, some feel that packet yeast is not the best.)

After mixing the ingredients, I covered my dough tightly with plastic wrap and let it rise for 18 hours. After 18 hours, it look pretty good. But when I dumped the dough into a skillet lined with floured parchment paper, the dough seemed to turn into little more than a sticky mess.

Certainly, shaping or folding it with my hands wasn’t an option. Fortunately, the round skillet provided a good mold for the dough. I lightly covered the dough and let it rise in the skillet for two hours. However, two hours wasn’t enough time for the second rise, so I waited one more hour.

By that time, it looked as though it had risen acceptably well. Then I sprinkled a lot of sesame seeds on top of the dough. Sesame seeds are a favorite of mine.

In preparation for baking the dough, I heated my oven and container—the Dutch Oven—at 475 degrees for 20 minutes. I kept in mind the need to have the Dutch Oven quite hot.

The baking process:

Using the parchment paper as a sling, I lifted the dough out of the skillet and into the Dutch Oven. I did not attempt to remove the parchment paper during the transfer to the Dutch Oven; consequently, the dough remained on the parchment paper during the baking.

After 30 minutes, I removed the lid of the Dutch Oven and baked the dough for an additional 20 minutes.

When the bread was brown, I lifted it out of the Dutch by, once again, using the parchment paper as a sling.

After letting it cool for awhile, I sliced a piece of the bread.

The bread was absolutely FANTASTIC! The crisp crust was perfect—certainly as good as anything I have gotten from a bakery. And the taste was wonderful!

Lance

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[bread recipes]

great recipes thanks for share i'm looking for this

[Liz]

I've not only used fresh black olives, diced small, but also added fresh rosemary to the dry ingredients- works like a charm and gives it a rustic taste! Great dipped in olive oil.

[Karen]

I made several loaves over the last two weeks. It is too easy for such a wonderful taste and look. I have done some variations on it as well...rosemary and sea salt; and then some sweet breads to which I added 1/3 cup of sugar in the mix, let it rise, and folded in soaked dried cranberries and walnuts; another sweet bread that I am making now will have soaked dried apricots in ameretto and walnuts, I have made whole wheat (actually 1/2 whole wheat, and sourdough (I let it rise over two days, punching it down twice). I bet the possibilities are endless. Cutting a design has presented a problem..my sis was able to do a 6 pointed stsr cut. I am not coordinated enough, so I used scissors to cut the design.

[Machelle Wright]

Ok so I'm not as great at bread making as I pretend to be! This is just what I needed. Simple!
Thanks -Machelle

[Kelly]

BTW, you can do this with active dry yeast. It sounds counterintuitive, but I've made a few batches by just throwing in 1/4 tsp of active dry yeast with the flour and salt (you don't need to bloom it). It rises and bakes up just fine. I also generally let this bread rise for 24-30 hours, so that might have something to do with it as well.

[Bill Ross]

I've made two of these loaves so far and they came out beautifully. I used 2 cups whole wheat and two cups bread flour. I didn't use any oil. It takes and has the texture of an English Muffin. Excellent!

[Chris]

I was planning to make regular bread to take to my mother, then discovered I have only ~1 tsp. of yeast left. No-knead to the rescue! This will be my first attempt. I just heard about no-knead a few days ago. Will I be hideously sorry that I bought myself a Kitchenaid mixer for Christmas?? Has anyone tried the "new improved" version using beer and vinegar?

[Gordon]

This is the recipe that I like best. Also produces for me, every time.

[Colleen Friedman]

No one has said anything about what temperature the water has to be. Typically it is somewhere between 110 & 130 deg F. Does it make any difference in this recipe?

[Karen in Toronto]

I baked the bread today, but after mixing and resting for 24 hrs I put it in the fridge. Two days later I tipped the dough out onto the table and got a lot of runny stuff, which I sopped up. I followed the rest of the instructions for resting and baking, and the result was excellent! I topped with sea salt and black cumin seed.

[joan peterson]

Am I the only one who has eaten this bread and thinks it's tasteless? It's beautiful, cooks easily in my cast iron pots, and is easier to make, but has no flavor. I've made it 3x. first time w/bread flour. 2nd x with all purpose, and 3rd x with all purpose and rye flour to give it some flavor. it would be great w/onion soup or for dipping. but other than that, i find it dullllllll. so sorry. I bake alot of bread with wheat/rye/bread flour/all purpose/make my own sourdough, etc. so i'm not a novice. i will make it for my husband (who likes it), but not for me.

[Banana bread]

No knead bread?? I never knew a thing like that existed :), that's great. I've just made bread (not banana lol) a few days ago. I mean it is not too much work even if you do knead it but this sounds so interesting that I have to try it! Thanks!

[Frank]

I have made 5 batches of this amazing bread some with buttermilk and some with yogurt as well as Multigrain bread.Fantastic great flavour and crumb.Now I am going to try Rye with apple cider vinegar.

[Melia]

What do you mean "turn dough into the pot"?
I did that, and it went "flump!" and promptly went totally flat. Its in the oven now, and I'm wondering what it'll look like when its done.
Melia

[Charlie]

That is quite the rave review. I'll have to try this.

[Noel]

You are WRONG !!! You do not let the dough sit for two more hours after the initial 18!!! Bake immediately

[Vivien]

found this bread got stale quite fast :(

http://www.dishwithvivien.com/2008/09/no-knead-bread-by-mark-bittman-jim-lahey-of-sullivan-street-bakery/

[Grace]

I'm a little confused. Is Lahey suggesting he invented this method? If so, he's in for a rude shock. The Irish and Italians have been baking bread like this for centuries.

[Carmen]

Since I was a child I wondered why do we need to knead the dough.
Thank you Jim for experimenting and making public this recipe!
It works and it is so good, real bread the way my gradmother used to make.
I asked my 9 year old to mix the ingredients, because I think kids need these skills and type of "projects" more than anything.
Thank you Jim!

[Judy]

I've asked this question on other blogs and haven't gotten an answer. Can I use milk in place of the water. The kalamata olives were wonderful in it yesterday. I just added them at the beginning and did not add salt. They did not sink. Yummy!!

[Rhonda]

I want to make Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread Recipe, but I am not sure if you oil the pan before you put it into the oven to heat, after you take it out before putting the dough in, or not at all. I don't want to do the wrong thing and have it stick to the bottom of the pan, or fry it by putting oil in the bottom. Hope to hear your answer soon.

[Renee Gardner]

I've always wanted to bake bread but felt overwhelmed by other recipes. This bread is SO simple to make. Family gobbled up the first loaf and I have the second one going through the waiting process. Simple, affordable, wonderful!

[sern]

to try

[Clara]

I just read an article in Maclean's about Lahey's bread method and tried it using another bread recipe I have. I had to add more water than my recipe called for to get the wetter dough and less yeast. It worked fabulously. The crust is beautiful and the crumb is lovely - beautiful uneven holes throughout the loaf. What a find! This will become a regular in our house.

[SolCat]

Hi! I just wanted to say thank you and you have a new regular reader. I was trying to make the no-knead bread, and every recipe said the dough mixture would be shaggy. What on earth does that mean?! You had pictures, good ones! Thanks!

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1194041416]

For all you fellow bread bakers out there,this is the quintessential bread! Try it and weep!

[crusty]

i bought jim lahey's book and have baked 3 loaves so far. the results are great. my mother-in-law wasn't impressed, however. she suggested i'd get a lighter loaf if i kneaded more.

[Patricia Ellen Cook]

I bought Jim's book after he was interviewed on NPR recently. (Most of the questions asked above are answered in his book. It's really worth buying! He's absolutely specific about everything).
After the book arrived, I didn't have an appropriate pot but found the Lodge preseasoned cast iron pot with cover at Amazon for 25 bucks! Perfect. In the evening on Monday I mixed up the bread, and baked it about 3 o'clock yesterday. Jim asks that you cool it for an hour but I couldn't wait that long! Close though. I'm still swooning. I poured a glass of red, and cut off a slice of this amazing loaf I had made in my own kitchen! The crust is wonderful! Perfect! The bread is fabulous! I am really grateful to be able to produce this extraordinary loaf in my own kitchen. The only thing somewhat comparable in Phx. is a loaf imported from LA - a comparable size costs $4.95. I'm thrilled.

[Laurie McKenzie]

Well ~ add me to your long list of accolades for Jim Lahey's No-Knead bread. My Mom got me the cookbook for Christmas and my husband & I have nearly polished off the first loaf! This 'system' of bread making is fantastic and I can hardly wait to try more recipe's in his cookbook.
All Thumbs Up!
Being that we live high in the Cdn Rocky Mtn wilderness, I did add a little more water because it's so dry here. Also had to do the first rise for nearly 24 hrs as our log cabin cools down throughout the night.
I highly recommend this to both novice & experts alike!
Cheers!

[Kim]

This bread is out of this world!!! It is so easy and so Outrageously delicious!!!!!!!

[Marjorie B.]

Im baking my second loaf of Jim Lahey's no knead bread. The first was delicious- BUT even with this 'in progress" loaf, I'm not getting a good rise even after 16 hrs. Used active dry yeast instead of instant because it was all I had ... Also, in this recipe, the bowl isn't greased ... does that affect the rise? Should I try adding a bit of sugar & instant yeast instead of active dry? The first loaf rose for 24 hrs before baking. Yummy but not as high and roud as the pics I've seen ...

[Janet]

If anyone wants to try making this bread, I'm here to report that using an old, heavy aluminum Guardian roasting pan works GREAT!!! I've made it many many times in my Guardian roaster, and it turns out fabulous.

[Russell Jordan]

I've been making this bread since Mark Bitmann first published it in Nov. 2006 with tremendous results each time. A few technical notes: I've used both Flieshmanns Rapid Rise yeast and instant "bread machine" yeast mixed with the other dry ingredients with similar results. I heat the water to 170 deg F in the microwave, (about the temp of a hot cup of coffee) which I believe helps proof the yeast along with the long initial rise. For wheat and rye flours I add 1.5 teaspoons of Vital Wheat Gluten per cup of flour to improve the rise. This is made by Arrowhead Mills and distributed on-line by Bob's Red Mill. This adds extra gluten and structure that these flours lack. If you want to know the science behind this get a copy of Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking the science and lore of the kitchen". It explains the role of the gluten how it develops and why a closed pot is key in this recepe. For the discoloration some have experienced with their LeCreuset dutch ovens after multiple bakings it generally can be removed by filling the dutch oven with 1/4 cup bleach to 1 cup water and letting it sit overnight. I found a pre-seasoned Emerileware cast iron dutch oven which works great and is even easier to clean for $50 at Amazon. It also has a metal knob that doesn't have to be removed for high temp. baking.

[Jae]

Why aren't easy recipes ever easy for me. My dough stuck to my very floured towel. What a mess it was prying it off the towel.